


Study Hall

by SnufflestheBear



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Lucy needs to stay relevant, Study Group, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-28 21:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8462995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnufflestheBear/pseuds/SnufflestheBear
Summary: What happens when Lucy finally realises that if they keep changing the past, her background in history isn't going to mean much?There is no plot to be found here, just team friendship (theirs), sleep deprivation (mine and also probably theirs), and the vaguest of possibilities for an ongoing series.





	1. Chapter 1

About six missions into her new life as a time-travelling crime-fighter, Lucy realises that with every trip to the past, her usefulness decreases. Every time they fail to preserve history exactly as it had been, her knowledge of the past they might travel to the next time becomes less accurate. So, she starts doing what she does best - studying. After the seventh mission, she grabs a laptop, hunkers down in one of the smaller Mason Industries meeting rooms, and starts looking for discrepancies between what she remembers and what has now become fact.  
Rufus walks past the office on his way out and spies her through the window. He doesn't come in - just points at the laptop, raises his hands to shoulder height, palm up, and mouths, "What?"  
  
She turns the laptop to face him so that he can read the screen, which is currently displaying a headline that definitely didn't exist before their most recent trip to the past. "Learning," she mouths back.  
  
He nods thoughtfully, then waves and walks away. She thinks nothing more of it - until, a few minutes later, he returns with Wyatt in tow. Wyatt points at the laptop and looks at her questioningly, so she shows him the same headline she showed Rufus. He nods, then he and Rufus put their heads together and consult for a few moments before walking away without so much as another glance in her direction. She furrows her eyebrows, then shrugs it off and tries to focus on the new information in front of her.  
  
She actually succeeds so well that when Rufus opens the office door, he startles her so much that she jumps in her seat and has to take two deep breaths to regain control. Wyatt is with him again, and they've brought gifts.  
  
Rufus hands her a mug that, as it turns out, is filled with coffee. "Fuel," he tells her solemnly.  
  
Wyatt places two bowls on the table - apparently, somewhere in the building, they managed to find chips and popcorn. He declares it "student food" as he and Rufus drop into chairs on either side of her.  
  
"Are you... helping me study?" she asks, bewildered.  
  
Wyatt laughs. "Not a chance. You're the history nerd. But that doesn't mean you have to be alone while you brush up." He pulls out his phone, leans back in his seat, and starts flicking through it.  
  
On her other side, Rufus produces a notebook and pen and starts pondering some calculations.  
  
And, just like that, it's a habit.  
  
*  
  
It’s past midnight on – Wyatt thinks it’s a Wednesday, though it’s hard to be sure. They’re all tired, but too wired to sleep, and Lucy doesn’t want to go home just yet, not when it means facing her mother and enduring another grilling on why her new consulting job has her out at all hours.  
  
So, instead, they’re all in what is fast becoming _their_ meeting room. Lucy is leaning over a laptop, reading about how the New Deal came about in this new timeline. Next to her, Rufus is reading some kind of academic journal – or at least, he’s looking in its general direction. Wyatt is sitting across from them, facing the door. He’s leaning back in a chair, feet up on the table, headphones in, watching a baseball game on a laptop of his own, but glancing up every now and then to check on his team.  
  
The game is getting down to the wire when Rufus breaks the silence. “Am I the audience insert character?”  
  
Wyatt looks from the game – Rua’s about to hit a home run, he can just tell – to Rufus, who has that worried but earnest expression that they’re starting to know well. This is serious. He swings his legs off the table as he pulls out his headphones, reluctantly putting the laptop aside, but tilted so he can still see the game. “Are you the what?”  
  
“The audience insert character, you know. The person the audience identifies with? The boring, dumb one with no personality who says stuff or asks questions that –”  
  
“I know what an audience insert character is, Rufus. And no, absolutely not. Why would you even ask?”  
  
“Okay, but are you just saying that because you’re being nice?”  
  
Lucy has abandoned her studies for now. Clearly, this conversation is too interesting to resist. “I think the primary reason he’s saying it is that this is real life and not a movie,” she suggests.  
  
Rufus rolls his eyes. Wyatt sneaks a look at the game – his team has the bases loaded; the counter at the top of the screen indicates three balls and two strikes for the current batter.  
  
“But if it weren’t real life,” Rufus says. “Would I be the audience insert? I mean, think about it. Every time we go back in time, I’m about as out of place as any audience member might feel. And much as I might like to think I have a personality, my stunning lack of success in the dating world would seem to indicate otherwise.”  
  
“No way,” says Lucy, clearly getting into it. “If anyone’s an audience insert it’s Wyatt. Audiences like to identify with characters who are more like them, you know, and we both have multiple degrees, which is pretty unusual, whereas Wyatt really… likes… guns…” She slowly trails off as she realises she might be venturing into “offend the soldier” territory.  
  
“I have a gun,” Wyatt tells her, gently threatening. “I have one _right now_.”  
  
“And besides,” says Rufus, “Audience inserts are supposed to be relatable.”  
  
Wyatt gives his head a tiny shake. “Are you saying I’m not relatable? Did you hear the part where I have a gun?”  
  
“No no no,” says Rufus, “I just mean that Lucy is way more relatable than either of us. She has, you know, she has a family, a mom, and a fiancé with a really generic name…” He looks at Lucy, waiting for her to fill in the name. She just shrugs sheepishly.  
  
“Noah,” says Wyatt. A quick look at the laptop shows that his team is now three runs ahead.  
  
“ _Noah_ ,” Lucy repeats. “I should really call him…”  
  
“So you _are_ the audience insert!” Rufus points at her, but she shakes her head firmly.  
  
“No way. My life is way too complicated. Audiences like straightforward, you know, like…” She waves a hand toward Wyatt, who honestly isn’t sure whether or not he should feel aggrieved.  
  
“Yeah, but they also like star-crossed lovers, like you and your _fiancé_ ,” says Rufus.  
  
“But they also like funny science nerds. Maybe you were right all along, and the audience insert is you.”  
  
“But-“  
  
“Okay, stop,” says Wyatt. He fixes first Lucy, then Rufus with his most imposing stare, until they both look down at the table, abashed. “Good,” he says. “All right. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it rationally. Rufus, get your notebook. We’re making a list.”  
  
Rufus perks up, produces his notebook from wherever he keeps it, writes “Audience insert pros/cons” across the top of a blank page, and draws three columns. As he and Lucy move to see the book better, already disagreeing with what Rufus is writing, Wyatt reaches out and snaps his laptop shut. Some things are more important than baseball.


	2. Jelly Bean Quiz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last ep made me depressed at the prospect of them not being friends for a while, so I wrote a bit of a fic in which they are very aggressively friend-ing.
> 
> Lucy studies better when people quiz her, but her competitive nature makes it a bit of an ordeal.
> 
>  
> 
> *

Lucy hasn’t felt this nervous since defending her doctoral thesis. She’s sitting with her back to the door, with Rufus and Wyatt facing her across the conference room table, a laptop in between them. They both look stern, even grim, and she’s starting to think she knows what people must feel like when police are trying to worm confessions out of them.  
  
Rufus points his index finger at her and snaps out a question. “How many days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln did they find John Wilkes Booth?”  
  
Her eyes widen slightly. That hasn’t changed, surely? It never even occurred to her to check if it had. “Twelve?” she says, wishing she didn’t sound so uncertain.  
  
Rufus glances at the laptop, scowls at her, and her heart sinks – until the frown breaks into a sunny smile. “Right!” he says.  
  
He adds a jelly bean to the sizeable pile in front of Lucy, and she exhales in relief. There’s a smaller pile in front of him and Wyatt, but according to the rules, she’s not off the hook until they’re all on her side of the table.  
  
She shifts her focus to Wyatt, who gives her a warm and comforting smile. It’s impossible not to smile back. “Okay, Lucy,” he says, in his you-can-do-this voice. “When was the Declaration of Independence signed?”  
  
“That’s easy,” she scoffs. “August second, 1776.” She reaches for a jelly bean, only to have Wyatt slap her hand away.  
  
“Ah-ah-ah,” he says. “August third.”  
  
She gapes at him. What on earth have they changed that would have altered the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence? He reads her unspoken question and shrugs, smugly takes a jelly bean from her pile and tosses it into his mouth.  
  
“Hey!” she says, and then, because she knows her voice was too sharp and Wyatt can’t possibly know about her insane competitive streak that is focused almost entirely on academics and exacerbated by losing a battle to save history, she adds, “I had plans for that jelly bean.”  
  
Rufus grins. “I didn’t realise this would be such a rollercoaster of emotions,” he says. “You’re grumpy, you’re uncertain, you’re confused, you’re happy, you’re confident, you’re angry –“  
  
“I’m not _angry_ -"  
  
“You are _so_ angry right now.”  
  
Wyatt nods. “So angry,” he agrees, and then, to her astonishment, he takes another of her jelly beans and eats it.  
  
“What –” She can’t figure out how to finish the question, she’s so dumbfounded. He just _took_ her jelly bean! For nothing!  
  
Watching her face carefully, Rufus slowly reaches across the table.  
  
“Don’t,” she warns him.  
  
Still meeting her eyes, he takes a jelly bean and slowly starts pulling it back toward him.  
  
“Don’t!” she says. She goes to smack his hand, but Wyatt blocks her and deftly snags another jelly bean before she can stop him. He and Rufus eat their candy in synch, still eyeing her, wary and unsmiling.  
  
She stares at them, mouth agape, for a good five seconds, and then she sets her jaw. “Okay,” she says, “It’s like that, is it? I’d like to see you remember when the battle of San Juan Hill happened, or who discovered deuterium-”  
  
“July first, 1898,” says Wyatt, at the same time as Rufus says, “Harold Urey, obviously.”  
  
Rufus sees her surprise and clicks his tongue. “Really? You’re going to choose military and science history and then be all surprised when we know the answers? Come on.”  
  
Wyatt grins, and Rufus grins, and then they’re grinning at each other and she wants a really good comeback to wipe that look off both their faces, but all she can come up with is a weak, “I hate you.”  
  
They both turn their grins on her. “Next question?” asks Rufus.  
  
She looks at her pile of jelly beans, thinks about exactly how obsessively she’s been forcing her team to quiz her for the last two hours just because she was too freaked out by the latest mission to go straight home, and sighs. “No,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’m not really some kind of study maniac, I promise.”  
  
“Thank _God_ ,” says Wyatt, jumping to his feet and sliding on his coat in one smooth movement. “I am _starving_. Pizza’s on me.”  
  
“Is that an invitation?” asks Rufus.  
  
Lucy’s confused too. “For, like, dinner? To hang out? Together? Outside this building?”  
  
Wyatt’s already halfway out the door. “You don’t have to come, but I’m going, right now, and last one to my car sits in back with all the junk.”  
  
Lucy and Rufus look at each other in mutual befuddlement, imagining what kind of horrors might be lurking in the back of Wyatt’s car, classified as “junk”. Then, almost simultaneously, they jump up and bolt for the door. Lucy’s closer, though. She might not win at missions, she might not win at keeping her life together and sane, and she might not win at Jelly Bean Quiz, but she is damn sure going to win at this. By the time they reach the car, she’s laughing.


End file.
